Sleeping Dogs Gets a Non-Live Trailer

And it works.  Last Month when the Live-Action Trailer for the game came out, I took a metaphorical scalpel to it and analyzed damn near every aspect of it because as a hype agent it was perfect, but as a tool to give anything looking like information about the game itself it was rather poor.  Such is the case with Live-Action trailers after all, which is the point I made and, while this is a story trailer and not necessarily a gameplay one, this will give us at least a -little- more insight than a live-action trailer could ever hope for.  So, in the tradition I've sort of put forth with the first one, let's have a little fun with this one as well, yeah?  Because nothing says true appreciation like taking single moments and elaborating on them for entirely too much time, given that they're mere moments in a game that will likely span in the 30+ hour range.

The very first thing that becomes apparent when you watch the trailer is that extra attention seems to have been paid to the voice work which is always, always welcome.  It seems to take the standard Open-World cutscene approach to showing off the story which is an obvious tried-and-true method at work, so I'm definitely not complaining about that either.  I saw Open-World because the game is obviously going to be an open-world game as, not only were the last True Crime games Open-World (which is how Sleeping Dogs started, you may remember), but it just works for this type of game.  If not immediately apparent from the premise alone, there are quite a few clips that show off walking about and driving and such, which all suggest open-world elements at the very least.

However, one of the things I tried to work out from the live-action trailer was if there would be environmental factors which are always cool if they exist, but a lot of games don't take advantage of them.  However, there might just be a glimpse of such a thing to be found at 0:30 when our main character slams somebody half-into an open furnace.  Brutal, cool, and environmental all in the same - I can dig it if it's true.  If nothing else, the game certainly seems Melee-focused which as we know, I am quite a fan of that, and to back it up, there's several instances of fist-fights going on in ways that seem to be more in-depth than your standard action game "Punch, punch, punch" style.  Limbs breaking, the above mentioned environmental factors (also evidenced at 1:34 where he slams the guy on that barred skylight) as well as weapon usage (the knife directly after the moment above) all seem to be in it as they were in the Live-Action trailer.  This is good.

Of course, gunplay is present as should be expected, and in a perfect world and/or game, having gunplay and melee in a game should mean they're both refined, but neither things exist so we can only hope that the presence of one doesn't downplay the inclusion of the other.  Based on the assault rifle while hanging out of a moving car scene, it likely won't be that complex but it never should be; it's aiming and shooting after all.  The smoothness of the execution is what matters and nothing else.  Speaking of hanging out of a moving car, that would be part of the driving I mentioned though it's possible that he's merely the passenger.  I imagine Hong Kong cars are designed counter to North American standard so he's hanging out the left-side and...just now I see the driver in the right side.  Whatever, I'm leaving that stuff because it's very obvious already that I'm typing this as I watch so it'd be disingenuous to not leave that stuff in.

So let's see.  We already know about the Human Shield element from the screenshots released around the time of the first trailer, this one has hints of an at least semi-deep melee system with environmental elements as well as hints of using weapons in the melee system.  Driving mechanics are almost guaranteed and they do show a variety of vehicles (Motorcycle, Car, Jet ski and/or boat, can't tell what he's jumping out/off of at 1:47) so that's likely in.  Minus a few bits that are still iffy no matter what (Dismemberment mostly, but more environmental stuff as well), this is pretty much the game the Live-Action trailer wanted to show, but in a more spectacular fashion than the game itself could show.  So I suppose in that respect, the live-action trailer certainly did live up to its own hype, or at least it has a real good chance at it.  Definitely worth looking into when it comes out.